The Law and Neuroscience Blog

NPR Three-peat on Neuroscience and Responsibility

Barbara Hagerty recently ran three pieces for NPR on the relationship between recent advances in science--especially MAOA research and work on psychopathy--and responsibility:

1. "A Neuroscientist Uncovers a Dark Secret"
2. "Inside a Psychopath's Brain"
3. "Can Your Genes Make You Murder?"

As always, happy reading!

United States v. Semrau

I have posted several things (see here and here) as of late about the two recent high profile court cases involving the admissibility of neural lie detection.  The case that has garnered the most attention is United States v. Semrau.  The United States Magistrate released his recommendation yesterday.  In short, neural lie detection was deemed to be inadmissible.   During the hearings, Marc Raichle and Peter Imrey--speaking independently as experts for the state and not as representatives of the LANP--testified against the admissibility of CEPHOS fMRI lie detection.  The court relied heavily on their testimony.  It also cited an article by LANP members Hank Greely and Judy Illes and another article by former LANP post-doctoral fellows Emily Murphy and Teneille Brown in reaching its decision.  

The complete recommendation can be found in the following attachment:

Download Semrau

Miller on Neural Lie Detection in the Courtroom

Greg Miller has recently written three pieces for Science Magazine on neural lie detection in the courtroom:

1. "fMRI Lie Detection Get's Its Day in Court"
2. "fMRI Lie Detection Hearing Ends, Decision Still to Come"
3. "Can Brain Scans Detect Lies"

As always, happy reading!

Detecting Individual Memories with Neuroimaging

Here is a recent article that readers of this blog will find of interest:

Rissman, J., Greely, H., and Wagner, A.D. (2001).  Detecting individual memories through the neural decoding of memory states and past experience.  PNAS.

The Stanford University press release can be found here.  Finally, the work has been featured in the popular press here and here.  As always, happy reading!

Neural Lie Detection in the News

Here are two recent pieces on neural lie detection:

WIRED:  "Lie Detection Brain Scan May Be Used in [US] Court for First Time."

NeuroKuz: "Lie Detection and Neurolaw: Do Brain Scans Have a Place in the Courtroom."

As always, happy reading!

Neurolaw in the News

Here are three articles readers might find of interest:

1. Faith & Reason has a piece on neuroscience and the law that includes an interview with our own Michael Gazzaniga).
2. Nature News has a piece on fMRI and its use in the courtroom.
3. Miller-McCune has a piece on a recent high profile death penalty case that includes an interview with our own Kent Kiehl.

As always, happy reading!

Neurolaw in the News

Neuroscience has taken center stage in two recent criminal court cases--one in Italy, the other in Chicago, IL.  In the former case, a convicted murderer got a reduced sentence based on evidence concerning his low activity MAOA (see here for a brief discussion about MAOA).  The case was discussed recently in Nature News.  Here is an excerpt:

An Italian court has cut the sentence given to a convicted murderer by a year because he has genes linked to violent behaviour — the first time that behavioural genetics has affected a sentence passed by a European court. But researchers contacted by Nature have questioned whether the decision was based on sound science.

Abdelmalek Bayout, an Algerian citizen who has lived in Italy since 1993, admitted in 2007 to stabbing and killing Walter Felipe Novoa Perez on 10 March. Perez, a Colombian living in Italy, had, according to Bayout's testimony, insulted him over the kohl eye make-up the Algerian was wearing. Bayout, a Muslim, claims he wore the make-up for religious reasons.

During the trial, Bayout's lawyer, Tania Cattarossi, asked the court to take into account that her client may have been mentally ill at the time of the murder. After considering three psychiatric reports, the judge, Paolo Alessio Vernì, partially agreed that Bayout's psychiatric illness was a mitigating factor and sentenced him to 9 years and 2 months in prison — around three years less than Bayout would have received had he been deemed to be of sound mind.

But at an appeal hearing in May this year, Pier Valerio Reinotti, a judge of the Court of Appeal in Trieste, asked forensic scientists for a new independent psychiatric report to decide whether he should commute the sentence further.

Brave Thinker

Congratulations to our own Hank Greely, who was recently selected by The Atlantic Monthly as one of 25  "Brave  Thinkers" for his research on neuro-enhancement!    Given some of the other folks who were also selected--ranging from Barack Obama and Jim Webb to Ralph Nader--Greely finds himself in some impressive company. 

The Future of Neuroimaged Lie Detection and the Law

Joelle Anne Moreno has an interesting new article entitled, "The Future of Neuroimaged Lie Detection and the Law."  The abstract is as follows:

Neuroscience will certainly change law. In fact, neuroscience research has the potential to influence a vast range of legal decisions. To the extent that neuroscientists increasingly make claims that neuroimaging reveals cognition, even the most unimaginative prognosticator might predict: (1) the preliminary investigative use of neuroimages to enhance witness interviews and police interrogations (including but not limited to lie-detection), (2) jury selection based on neuroimages that appear to reveal jurors' unconscious stereotypes or biases, and (3) arguments about intent or sentencing based on neuroimage-enhanced explanations of behavior and predictions of dangerousness. In anticipation of a brave new world of neuroscience 'enhanced' law, this Article suggests that if we want to predict or control future social and legal responses to cognitive neuroscience research, we must carefully and explicitly consider two basic preexisting realities: (1) our shared assumptions about the validity of the medical field of neuroscience and the accuracy of diagnostic neuroimaging technologies; and (2) our increasingly frequent exposure (even within the mainstream media) to uncritical reports of cognitive neuroscience research that purports to correlate brain activity with cognition, deception,or social behavior. The risk, is that if we ignore these realities, judges, jurors, and the general public will likely view all or most neuroscience-based evidence as legitimate 'hard' science because researchers rely on technologically sophisticated neuroimaging tools of demonstrated accuracy. The problem is that judges and jurors will mistakenly assume that technologies that are demonstrably valid medical diagnostic tools yield equally valid conclusions when they are used to map the neural correlates of deception and other forms of cognition.

As always, happy reading!

Reading Group with Pardo and Patterson

I just wanted to announce that Michael Pardo and Dennis Patterson have graciously agreed to participate in an on-line reading group here on The Law and Neuroscience Blog later this fall.  We have yet to formally set the date, but once we do I will post the official dates and times.  For now, I just wanted to say a few things about this exciting event.  First, as many of you know, Pardo and Patterson have recently written two widely discussed papers which approach the gathering field of neurolaw with a very critical eye: 

1. Pardo, M. and Patterson,D. Forthcoming. "Philosophical Foundations of Law and Neuroscience." The University of Illinois Law Review.
2. Pardo, M. and Patterson, D. Forthcoming. "Minds, Brains, and Norms." Neuroethics.

Both papers draw upon the earlier criticisms of neuroscience that were developed by neuroscientist M.R. Bennett and philosopher P.M.S. Hacker in their book entitled Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. The critical stance adopted by Pardo, Patterson, Bennett, Hacker, and others has found a sympathetic audience.  For just a sampling of favorable responses to their work on this front, see:

1. Mindful Hack has three posts(!): here, here, and here
2. Medical Humanities Blog has a post here.
3. Times Online ran this related article by Raymond Tallis.

Of course, there is plenty of room for disagreement as well.  For instance, Peter Reiner responds to Pardo and Patterson over at the Neuroethics and Law Blog. 

Given how much discussion Pardo and Patterson have already generated, I am delighted to have them participate in a reading group here on the LANB.  As I mentioned earlier, once we have settled on a time-frame for the event, I will post an update.  In the meantime, I suggest that you download and read their pair of papers.  Also, for those of you who are not familiar with the philosophy of Wittgenstein, you might consider downloading this paper by Hacker since it contains a helpful introduction to the kind of Wittgensteinian criticism of modern and contemporary psychology that Pardo and Patterson use in motivating their own criticisms of neurolaw.